Page 65 of Unlikely Heroes
The others had adjourned to the sitting room. She let herself into the washroom, Ben tagging along behind, in time to scrub Able’s back. Since she had Ben close by, Meridee scrubbed her son’s face, removing a layer of gravy with trifle on top. “Son, you need to stand a little closer to your fork and spoon,” she said. He nodded, unperturbed.
She looked at father and son, remarkably alike, curly-haired and dark of eyes. She patted her belly, wondering what the new little Six would look like. Maybe she was vain to want a daughter with some of her own features. Maybe it didn’t matter.
Ben was a most unruffled child and inquisitive. He regarded his naked father as Able toweled off, then looked down at himself. “Mama, am I going to look like that someday?” he asked.
It was a serious question from Ben.If you’re extremely lucky, she wanted to say. She settled on, “I expect you will in fourteen or fifteen years.”
He eyed his father up and down again, who was hugely amused and trying not to show it. “Doesn’t all that get in the way?” Ben asked.
“No, son. Trousers help, I will admit. Hand me my smalls, please.”
Ben did as bidden, then wandered toward the door. “I smell more gravy,” he said on the way to the kitchen.
Able threw back his head and laughed silently. Meridee laughed into her apron. When she could talk, she grabbed him around the waist. “Did you ever think fatherhood would bear any resemblance to what just happened?”
He looked down at her with great tenderness. “I never in my life imagined I could be so happy,” he said quietly.
“Neither did I. Welcome home from sea, my love.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Meridee was in bed long before Able came upstairs with his father. She listened to them talking in the hall, but softly. She heard father and son go into Ben’s room. She imagined them watching the sleeping boy and wondered what was going through the count’s mind. As she closed her eyes, Meridee knew better than to imagine what pinged around inside her husband’s brain.
She woke when Able sat down beside her. “My father cannot fathom what has happened,” he said. “He tells me over and over that he never expected such an experience as this.” He took her hand. “Personally, I had given up, until Captain Rose showed me that painting at Trinity House. Then I wanted to know everything about that Spaniard in the frame.”
He kicked off his shoes and lay down beside her on top of the coverlets. “I am still amazed at how wrong we all were.”
“You’re not wrong often,” she said as she rested her head on his chest.
He patted her bare back, then caressed it. “Mrs. Six, I do believe you are naked.”
“Aye, sir. Reporting for duty.”
“Duty, is it? How about, ‘requesting and requiring immediate admission,’” he teased as he stood up and started stripping. “Move over, but not too much.”
“And leave my warm spot?” she said.
“It’ll be much warmer soon, wife.”
It was. Rational thought deserted her then as she loved her man home from war and tumult, bad food and duty. She doubted any other woman in Hampshire was providing a better homecoming to a man back from Napoleon’s war.
“You are about two months along?” he asked later, his voice drowsy now. He seemed to speak more slowly than usual. She nearly teased him about the efficacy of a thorough homecoming to dismiss rational conversation, even in a genius.
“Almost.” Well, heavens, she had a hard time with words, too.
She thought he slept then, and prepared herself for slumber.
“You awake?” he asked, as her eyes started to close.
“Sort of.”
“I’ve been thinking.”
She laughed. That comment had become a family joke no one except the Sixes and their closest friends would ever understand. “What else is new?” she asked, the standard reply.
He put his hand over hers. “If this little one is another girl, please name her Mary Munro.”
A shiver darted down her back. “You will be here, too, Able.Wewill name her Mary Munro.”
